Thirty-six people were killed and around 300 injured after rioting broke out in Khartoum on Monday following the death of the former rebel leader John Garang, who had been sworn in as Sudan’s vice-president just three weeks ago.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed in the Sudanese capital in a bid to restore order. Garang went missing on Saturday evening when a helicopter he was travelling in plunged into the mountainous region between Sudan and Uganda, said Sudanese radio.
The body of the 60-year-old politician, who led the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) for 21 years through a bitter civil war against the Islamic Khartoum government, was found on Monday.
Garang was the key southern Sudanese leader in talks that culminated in a January peace accord that saw him become the country’s deputy leader. News of his death early on Monday sparked violent scenes in Khartoum with thousands of southern Sudanese, some brandishing knives and bars, running through streets, looting shops, attacking cars and beating up pedestrians.
Observers said the fury highlighted Sudan’s ethnic and religious divisions. Garang led the black Africans of southern Sudan, who are predominantly Christian and animist. The government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is generally Arab and Islamic.
The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said he hoped Sudan’s peace process would not be derailed by the events.
”He is larger than life, rather charismatic and believed in his mission with all his being,” Annan said. ”He lived and fought for his dream. And just as he was on the verge of it, he lost his life.”
The United States dispatched two top diplomats, assistant secretary of state for African affairs Connie Newman and the US special envoy to Sudan, Roger Winter, to encourage a smooth transition in the southern leadership. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who called Garang ”a man of great intellect and energy,” spoke to his widow by telephone to offer her condolences. US President George Bush praised Garang as a ”visionary leader and peacemaker”.
The SPLM has named Salva Kiiras his successor. Kiir was Garang’s deputy and played a major role in negotiating the early stages of the peace deal. President al-Bashir addressed the nation in a broadcast, urging calm and expressing his belief that the power-sharing peace accord would remain intact.
Confusion surrounding the helicopter crash in remote southern Sudan fuelled the suspicions of rioters. Six other SPLM officials and a crew of seven were killed, according to Sudanese radio.
Garang was returning to New Site from Uganda where he had been visiting his longtime ally, President Yoweri Museveni. He was in a Ugandan presidential military helicopter, a Russian Mi-72.
The aircraft ran into stormy weather near the town of New Kush on Saturday and turned round. The Sudanese statement said it had crashed in the mountains of the border region with Uganda, although there was speculation it had run out of fuel.
Museveni said his government would investigate the crash and the SPLM council said it was launching a thorough inquiry. ”We are not ruling out anything. We have asked Uganda’s aviation authority to look at the flight recorder,” said Deng Alor, a member of the SPLM’s leadership council from New Site. – Guardian Unlimited Â